My Journey, My Discovery by Helga Geraldine Pataki
by HolmesSlice
Summary: Helga goes on a path of self-discovery written for a contest in her high school
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All rights belong to their respective owner  
Author's Note: This is the memoir that is mentioned in "Helga's Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream" Please leave your thoughts, reviews, rants and reviews. Thank you so much :)  
**

**My Journey, My Discoveryby Helga Geraldine Pataki**

_I like to think that somewhere out there, on a planet exactly like ours,_  
_two people exactly like you and me made totally different choices_  
_and that, somewhere, we're still together._  
_That's enough for me._  
–Iain Thomas, "The Twins"

_We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go._  
_For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it._  
–Rainer Maria Rilke, "Requiem For a Friend"

_When you give someone your whole heart and he_  
_doesn't want it, you cannot take it back._  
_It's gone forever._  
–Sylvia Plath, quoted by Elizabeth Sigmund in "Sylvia in Devon: 1962,"  
in Edward Butscher's Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work

**The First Steps to Self-Discovery: The scariest thing I am about to do**

I could talk about how when I was merely three years old I had found true love. A true love that was so epic it would quite literally shaped my entire childhood. A true love that would expand my creative, artistic soul and at the same time limit my horizon like a horse wearing blinders. A true love so profound that I can quite honestly describe the first eleven years in one word: football-shaped. A very odd way of describing a childhood as football-shaped and I'd presently agree. However I've never been much of anything but I was definitely odd.

I could talk about how true love existed in the form of a kind-hearted, compassionate young boy. This young three year old boy who had shown true, unadulterated altruism in a world of negligent parents, a perfectionist older sister, and one rather mean, lunch-stealing dog. However what would the fun be in talking about that alone?

I'm not here to be mushy and romantic. Don't get me wrong, I am very much a romantic deep, deep down. Underneath all the layers of my personality lives a romantic girl afraid of vulnerability. My heart yearns for romance but fears the complications of leaving my chest wide open for any surgeon to have their way. What better way to hide said vulnerability than by acting snarly, mean, rude and forever scowling at the world. Despite all of this that sweet little boy always seemed to easily break through and see glimpses of the real me.

The real me that wanted a great, sweeping masterpiece about love in all its depth, madness, passion, and complexity. I wanted to write and create great, sweeping love stories. I wanted to create my own Byronic heroes complete with mysterious castles, secrets held by the staff, and the one crazed woman who lived in a tower. The real me that wanted to believe in something more than what I had experienced throughout my life. I wanted to believe that love could conquer all, that love at first sight existed, that love was as if I had found the other half that would complement me and all of my faults the way I'd complement them.

That is the kind of love I want. I want the mushy, romantic kind of love because as Barbara Streisand said in "A Mirror Has Two Faces" it feels "fucking great." More than that I want a love that will sustain the good and bad times. I want a love that will be so strong and enduring that it's this love that sustains me when we're going through a rough patch, or dealing with a crisis. I want the kind of love where I love the person when they're eating breakfast, saying hello or goodnight, when we're grocery shopping, that whatever we do is a sign of love. I don't want flowers, and declarations of love. I want to be the Annie that finds my Danny. Every time I watch that Story Corps video about this amazing couple I realize that it exists, it truly exists, and damn it all if I don't get it.

The love I had witnessed in my life was filth, corrupted, damaged and destructive. The love I had experienced personally was selfish, mean, angry, and neglectful. Growing up I'd walk to school or take the bus and wonder if my family had ever truly loved me. I'd have so many thoughts, that no child ought to be burdened with, growing up.

I wondered if I had been an accident, the "oops" pregnancy. I long concluded that I had to have been given the disparaging age difference between my sister and me. As I bloomed into adolescence my father only grew meaner and would often tell me that I was unplanned and an unwanted pregnancy. I wondered if Miriam had issues against abortions and the fact that I am writing this introduction is testament to this fact. I wonder what could have resulted in Miriam giving birth to me when my parents held such anathema towards each other even from when I was a young toddler. The fact I had the signature "Pataki look" consisting of a unibrow, which I've long since waxed and shaped, means I am my father's daughter even if he wishes otherwise.

I know what I want and I know that I will refuse to settle. I've seen what settling does. My mother settled and had her spirit literally strangled until the only spirit she had left came out of a bottle. I know that for some settling in love may be fine or satisfying, but sometimes it is unsatisfying, sometimes it is depressing and sometimes it can be destructive. I cannot and will not take the risk of my very livelihood and spirit and if it means never finding the one then I know that I never once gave up.

The purpose of my book is to put it all out there. I need to put every last breath, emotion, event, everything out into the universe. I need to lay bare the very soul that beats deep within buried by pain, shame and embarrassment. I may be a seventeen year old scant in the experiences of love, life, and the world around me. However I want to believe that ripping off the bandages of this splintered heart will allow me to mend and move on. These fissures have cracked throughout my whole self and caused an ache that has only dulled in time but is always there. I want to heal, mend and not have this constant ache in my heart.

I want to believe that there is some gleam of wisdom I can dig out of the history of my very short, but interesting and unrequited, love life. Love isn't always rainbows and glitter. Love isn't always cheerful. Love isn't always like some Hallmark card. Love can sometimes grow ugly. Sometimes love can be at its birth, its inception, its first spark of existence be true and pure but warp as it ages. Love can be warped, corrupted, made deviant if it is ill-nurtured. I know this because my love of that football-shaped boy had become warped over the course of my childhood.

My book is going to brutally tear me open. I am going to lay at everyone's feet the story of my life and the truth of my secrets. I may never recover from this experience. What I do know for certainty is that I will not recover if I keep all of this deep inside me. Gnawing from the inside out like carrion-beetles laying waste to a carcass until there is nothing left but bones. Writing this book may have the same result but I know that, as cliché as the saying goes, what does not kill me will make me stronger.

This will not be an easy process for me. I have always been taught to keep my emotions close and shut off from others. I had the "Pataki pride" to uphold. I have done and acted in ways that have hurt others who have hurt me and angered me. Most shamefully I have hurt those I loved most, those who I would give my life to, like my best friend.  
The fact that my best friend Phoebe has thus far been so patient with me, so caring, so long suffering but still willing to stand up to me is such a blessing. More than I think she realizes. Something I hope she knows, and if not, something I must remedy immediately.

I was more than a bully. I was a girl who acted self-defensively to protect myself. In protecting myself I caused a lot of pain from my harsh words to my nicknamed clenched fists. I directed much of this bullying to the "love of my life." I would often distance myself from the few that cared for me.

Then there is simply the fact that I am utterly embarrassed about how I behaved in the secret expression of my love. This is the area that I am going to openly discuss. I have kept this part of me secret for too long. It's festered like an open wound seeping its pus into my soul and heart, making it difficult for me to find peace, move on, and love another. I have allowed this to warp myself and to take over my life. It's been the millstone around my neck. It's been long enough, I must cut the rope and set myself free.

I'm going to steal back my heart.

_I can't steal his heart_  
_but I can steal back mine_  
_I can steal back mine_  
_I can steal back mine_  
_I can't steal his heart_  
_but I can steal back mine_  
–Emily and the Woods – "Steal His Heart"


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **All rights to their respective owners

**Author's Notes: **This is the second chapter to Helga's memoir. Enjoy! This memoir will be playing a big part in my other story, "Helga's Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream" in a few different characters. Let me know what you think of the poem. I'm not a poet by nature but I am trying to write that part of Helga. :)

**Comments to reviews:** N**ep2uune:** I agree about using this as therapy. I want to use this as her therapy. I'm thinking that Dr. Bliss is urging Helga to do this when the obsession is starting to come at a point where it's not just an expression of love but becoming warped. I want to use her memoir as a catalyst in the discussion she has with Arnold, and her family. I'm glad you are liking it :)

**My Journey, My Discovery  
by Helga Geraldine Pataki  
**

_Why one writes is a question I can easily answer, having so often asked it myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me—the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own like a climate, a country, an atmosphere where I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That I believe is reason of every work of art. We also write to heighten our awareness of life. We write to lure, enchant, and to console others. We write to serenade. We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and once in retrospection. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak to others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled or restricted or lonely. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it._

** –Anaïs Nin, "A New Woman"**

_Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it; it belongs to those who need it. _

**–Massimo Troisi, in ****_Il Postino_**

**In the beginning there was a girl called Helga**

Let me start from the beginning. Not in a Facebook fashion where it scrolls all the way down to the day when I was born because when and where is irrelevant. In many ways my life truly began when I was three years old. From that very moment onward when I met that little boy who complemented my bow because it matched my pants, everything changed. My world had gotten a little bit bigger, a little bit brighter, and a little bit more tolerable. The capacity for love and to show love had increased in me. The sudden realization that everyone needed a little bit of love had entered me like a seed yearning to germinate and grow. Even now that little seed has been struggling to fully bloom.

When I met Arnold that rainy day I had fallen in love. I had found my muse for the fledgling artist that lived deep within me. Arnold had continued to be nice to me and I fell deeper in love the way a three year old knows how: courageously and unabashedly. After a classmate stole my graham crackers, which is still my favorite food, Arnold had given me his share. He had noticed what had happened. He had noticed my sadness. He wanted to rid of my trembling lips and overflowing tears. I was so elated and overcome with emotion. Then the teasing started by the same boy who had stolen my snack. He mimicked my lovesick sigh and the tilt of my head on my clasped hands.

It was then that I felt ashamed for my actions. It was then that I had the comments running in my mind of my dad's words about the "Pataki" pride. I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I not been so afraid, had I not been so ashamed of being in love or love itself, had I not worried about pretense and image in front of others. These fears started so long ago. I was barely toilet trained, barely turning four years old, barely beginning to understand the world and yet these fears were crippling me. I grew angrier by the minute. I hated that I had been wrong. Showing my mushy side only left me embarrassed and scared that Arnold would be teased as well. I made a decision to put a stop to the teasing. I approached that snack-stealing boy and pushed him down onto the floor.

It was that moment that I chose to be a bully. It was at that moment I'd close off my real self, and emotions less I'd be teased, have it used against me, or used against the one I loved. I continued my reign of terror against my classmates. However I would hide whenever possible and speak of Arnold the way a three year old could before learning to be more artistic and add more flourish. The kind of prose that was straight to the point the way most children are at that age. "I love you Arnold and I want to marry you." Blunt and straight to the point, but it was true. I loved Arnold deeply and wanted to marry him in the future.

The secret prose that I would gush out of my soul was accompanied by a picture of Arnold taped onto a light pink heart with ruffled purple paper. Creating this first memento was my first big adventure in my expression of love. I had hidden a small pair of scissors in the pocket of my pink jumper. While everyone had run out for recess I claimed I had to go to the bathroom. I went to my cubby conveniently located next to Arnold's claiming I needed my hand-me-down teddy bear. I stole a sheet of pictures from his cubby. In the girls bathroom I cut out one picture and threw out the rest. I couldn't leave a sheet with one picture cut out, that would have looked suspicious. Though I did wonder at the time if I should have kept them all. I kept the memento in my pocket close to my rapid pitter-pattering heart. I still have that memento in a memory box under my bed. It reminds me of a time when things were simpler.

For the next few years my prose became a little bit more elaborate. As I learned about the poetry that we all learn as children during Valentine's Day. "Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you." Even then I would change the words that I would secretly and quietly shout to Arnold hoping that my feelings would resonate across the room, the hallway, the school, the city, and universe. "Roses are red, violets are blue, no matter what I said, I do love you." I definitely began to have fun when I learned about rhyming in class.

I've always been a rather precocious child. How do I know that? I mean I was young enough where I couldn't possibly remember little bits of information like this. It is what my neighbor, Mrs. Cardell, had told my mom. She had commented on how quickly I had learned to crawl, walk, run, speak and read. Often times Miriam would only nod agreeing but never fully listening. She was always too preoccupied with "smoothies", "B" and his anger issues, and Olga.

Mrs. Cardell was a very nice elderly woman who lived directly across from the Pataki household. I would do errands for Mrs. Cardell who would pay me with sweet words, a listening ear, patience and cookies. Her cookies were absolutely indescribable. No words could adequately describe the level of Nirvana I found in each gooey, chocolate-chipped bite. There was never any physical affection as Mrs. Cardell was not raised to give hugs, hold hands, or pats on the head. However since I was growing up in a similar environment I never paid much mind.

The type of errands I would help Mrs. Cardell with around the house varied from picking up the mail even dealing with Salty, a salt-and-pepper-colored cat, who had a prolapsed rectum. Yup, as a kid I helped push in Salty's behind. I didn't mind though. I would rather push in a cat's rectum than spend any more time with my family than I had to. That ought to give you enough inkling as to what my family life was like.

The fact that Mrs. Cardell would call me "Elizabeth" or "Lizzie" or even "Bethie" did not matter to me. Who was Elizabeth? Elizabeth was her deceased granddaughter who had passed away ten years prior. Mrs. Cardell could have called me Bucky, Jim, Lucy, or Josephine, it didn't matter. Sadly it only lasted two years during first and second grade. I would take every opportunity to spend time with her before a nasty cold had turned into pneumonia. I never understood until much later the full brevity of death. I only knew that one day she had the "sniffles" then the next week her son was kneeling beside me telling me she was gone. I knew on an intellectual level what he had meant but emotionally I refused to accept it. So I played dumb. "Gone where? The grocery store? She said she was going to make chocolate-chip cookies today because I had helped her weed the garden." I say it and her son shakes his head sadly, "No, dear, no cookies today." I see him fight the tears and I have no idea what to tell him. "I'm going to miss her cookies too," I tell him quietly. Her son smiles through his tears and kisses me on my forehead.

Mrs. Cardell's impression on me is still felt at this very moment. It is there that I was exposed to fine arts, a passion of Mrs. Cardell's. From the works of Edward Hopper (whose art I still find simple and still wonder about his female subjects), to the soliloquy of Shakespeare's Hamlet, to the travels of Gulliver, to the soulful crooning of Etta James, to wanting to bring up my own baby (Carey Grant would be an added bonus).

She created in me a voracious appetite to read, watch, listen and experience the world around me. I noticed the beauty of autumn in its explosion of oranges and reds. I appreciated the joy of ice skating and its soothing sounds of blades crossing ice. I learned how revitalizing petrichor was in the city park amidst the oil-slicked roadways, the whiff of exhaust fumes, the remnants of dog feces from owners who had not learned to bag and trash. I felt the relief from the summer heat by the opening of a fire hydrant. I felt the peace that would overcome me while listening to the concertos of Bach. I learned to appreciate, value and find relief in the beauty of the arts when my own world was overcast with breaks of sunlight being scarce. Yet I was afraid to show this side of myself to Arnold and those around me. I hid this part of me with mean words, threats and a scowl. It was around the end of first grade that Phoebe and I became friends. At that time it was a friendship of convenience. I needed companionship and she needed protection from the teasing because of her intelligence and glasses.

It was Mrs. Cardell who had given me the courage to go to the Hillwood library since I read her entire collection. There I would learn of Matilda whose family life was so reminiscent of my own. I had wished so desperately to have her abilities so that I too could have those adventures. I wished so desperately to meet my own Ms. Honey. It was there that I had decided to feed my mind with all of the children books I could read and eventually moved on to works of Bronte, Hemmingway, Frost, Byron, Dickens and the list grew on and on. It was there that that I discovered the world of poetry.

And in that world I had found my home.

**I Find You**

-Helga G. Pataki, summer before 4th grade

_I find you in the hum of the city_

_I find you in the moon above_

_I find you in the sway of the sea_

_If I could only speak to you of my love_

_I am touched by your charity_

_I am touched by your worry and care_

_I am touched by the goodness you see_

_Crippled by the fear of being your bête noir_

_I see you in the heroes I read_

_I see you being forever brave_

_I see you as the prince upon his steed_

_To this fear will I always be a slave?_

_I hear you in the sounds of spring_

_I hear you in the chirps of a blue jay_

_I hear you in the steeple's ring_

_I must tell you of my love one day_


End file.
